mana lu

Sister Lurdez–Mana Lu, she was affectionately called–had been through it all: her entire village shot or kidnapped when she was eight; the Santa Cruz massacre of 1991; the full-scale Indonesian invasion in 1998; watching bands of drugged up militia lay waste to her country. Dr. Dan had watched her walk up to Indonesian soldiers and slap them in the face, scolding them like schoolchildren. She was there in the beginning behind the frontlines, setting up soup kitchens and organizing volunteers. There were fifty THOUSAND refugees up in the hills of Dare in 1999, crawling up the sides of the riverbed and filing up the winding rock path that took our CAR thirty minutes to scale. Yet she sought no recognition, no glory, no such folk-hero status. She simply wanted to help Timor.

She us at the entrance to the village. It lay next to the remnants of an abandoned mine from the early 1900s.It was a beautiful place, even in the smothering darkness of night. Rows and rows of flowers lined the perimeter, with freshly dug holes waiting to be filled with more local flora. We stepped across immaculately clean red tile floors, passing a semi-circle of school desks and a wide, blank chalkboard. Behind a partition were rows of tables, elegant metal chairs, and a balcony. The balcony that looked over all of Dili–from the flickering lights of the ships and oil barges in the harbor, to the rapidly growing urban sprawl of the city. If you used your imagination, you could picture the city just a decade ago, and how quickly it had changed with the coming of independence and foreign money.

The village had been constructed bit by bit by the local people, intent on creating their own homes, able to fix the buildings themselves when they inevitably needed repairs. Independence, not dependence. Mana Lu always stressed that. “It took just ten years for the mentality of the Timorese to go,” she sighed. “It will take a much longer time to build our spirit up again. To not rely on handouts from other countries to live. To stop asking for foreign investment and to invest in ourselves. To focus on Timor, and to become one country again. Not so many political parties making promises and promises to get power. We became an independent country, and for what? We are wasting it.”

When they first built Tibar, the Portugeuse charged $35,000 for a water system. There was no competition for that sort of services, and they had nothing to leverage in negotiation, so they had to take it. The well they drilled was 80 meters deep, supplying good, clean water to the facility. But the parts eventually wore out, and they pump that pushed the water up broke. When the pump broke the first time, the Chinese told them they needed $10,000 to fix it–money they didn’t have. But Minister of Finance garnered support from other higher-ups, asking for money where they could, and they managed to raise $6,000 to put towards the repairs. The repairs eventually proceeded with an inadequate budget, and the pump broke again just four months later. Money wasted.

To fix the pump again, the Chinese want this part, that part, and that part. Tibar simply can’t function without a reliable water source. The same schematics were even used for their other facilities all around Timor. Tibar has nine “houses” in total, and if the pump at the main site kept failing, the water pumps in Loess and Aileu will doubtless follow suit.

Looks like our work is cut out for us.

the ER

How could this little girl’s forehead have so much blood in it? -_____-

Nurse Pinky asked again and again for more gauze, and I doused each one in sterile saline before she dabbed the girl’s forehead with each square. Then, I took over, holding a square over the girl’s forehead–she couldn’t have been more than five–trying in vain to distract her from the gaping wound in her face, caused by falling on a rock. It was maybe 2cm long and 3mm wide.

Behind her, another little boy, maybe three years old, had fallen on a broken bottle. He had a gaping wound in his head too, but his was on the back of the head. His parents has shaved off a good chunk of his hair, leaving the 1cm by 2mm wound exposed (woohoo) and easy to clean.

Josh began opening up a surgical kit, mid-forearm length gloves and all, ready to suture up the three year old boy’s head. Pinky applied three injections of lytocane–I had had the stuff stuck into my finger when a glass pipette shattered in my hand and cut an artery–and once the back of the kid’s head felt like a bag of cement to him, the suturing began! A curved tip tied to a razor thin length of blue-black string. Josh lined the tip of the suture up with one edge of the wound, pushing it in so the tip went into the boy’s head and out the other side at a perpindicular angle. Perfect. The suture was yanked out for a good ten inches as he looped the length of the string–one, two, three times around the pliers. He pulled the wound shut, then repeated the loop with two lengths. Then once length. Then snip.

Two more passes later, and the little boy’s head was fine. He even hopped off the operating table on his own, “happy as larry” as the Aussies say. Now onto the little girl.

We could very well have left the wound alone. After all, suturing a little girl’s effing face isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do in the world. Either way, there would be a pretty big scar. But in the end, Josh was fine with giving it a shot. Suturing the little boy was only the second time he’d ever sutured anything. The first time was on a 40 year old man’s leg. It wasn’t pretty, lul.

We held a length of towel over the little girl’s eye to calm her down. Seeing Josh’s bearded face towering over her frail form PROBABLY wouldn’t have made the surgery any easier. However, Nurse Joao brought out a lifesaver–a spray-on local anaesthetic that made it so the little girl felt zero of the lytocane injections. One, two, three injections, and her forehead was completely numb. Josh readied another tip, fresh from a new surgical kit, and began suturing again. This one wasn’t bad either, aside from the string getting caught in the hinge of the pliers a couple times. It took a little over an hour and a half to process both kids and to get cleaned up, but in the end it was worth it. Two last-minute patients who JUST made it into the ER in time, and two happy sets of reassured parents. Then, off to the Dili Beach for an overpriced hamburger, shoddy fries, and a lulzy game of trivia. The largest desert in the world with the lowest amounts of rainfall? Not the Sahara, nor the Gobi. It’s Antarctica. Ahhhh.

Day 0

We stepped off the old Boeing 737 at 1:30pm, directly onto a tarmac that we shared with U.N. helicopters and blue-capped peacekeepers.

Less than five hours later, we were already lost.

We had taken a taxi from the clinic to Lurumata. “Don’t pay more than $2” Mana Marcia warned us. She had been packing up her things too, about to leave for Villa Verde to drop off Lisbeth. We walked a few hundred meters before we found a running taxi. The old, wizened driver held up two fingers when we asked him “Lurumata”? His car’s brake petal squeaked every time he mashed it–which was often. Just like Bali, and just like Taiwan and China, traffic was a nightmare. I couldn’t begin to imagine myself driving here one day. Scooters weaved around us like flies, and men on the sidewalk selling SIM cards and cigarettes beckoned to me whenever our eyes met.

It only took five minutes to reach Lurumata. We were dropped off across the main street, in front of the aptly named Landmark store. We bounded across the honking, hissing, breathing four-lane road to the “big tree” Natto had pointed out to us earlier that day. “It is a shortcut” he said. Suuure. Like on the Hopi reservation, the streets of Dili had no names. People just knew where to go based on their memories and sheer luck. I was wearing cheap Balinese flip-flops, sporting a massive backpack filled with freshly purchased shampoo and body wash bottles, two laptops, and a sheaf of Project Plus One documents. I probably would have changed into sneakers like Jake. Oh well, too late.

We walked down the narrow “shortcut” street, unsure of where we were going. Even though we had JUST been here a few hours ago, that had been in a car, and we had been too busy chatting with Natto to have focused on where we were going. It was getting dark alarmingly fast. A huge pig lumbered in front of us, followed by four teeny piglets. It veered right into someone’s yard, and we pressed onwards. Small children yelped “hello mister!” to us from behind fences and through open windows; some of the friendlier Timorese men nodded hello to us, but most just eyed us skeptically. It was like they could tell we were lost. Because we were COMPLETELY lost.

Every road looked plausibly like the road to our host family’s house. We passed makeshift soccer fields and small carts lined with vegetables. “Na, bro. I don’t think this is it.” We repeated that to each other over and over again as we walked back and forth, up and down roads. All the kids were home from school now–they swarmed the roads in twos and threes, confusing us even further. After the eighth road, it was getting too damn dark. Most taxis stopped running once night fell, and the sun had almost disappeared from the pink-streaked sky.

“Let’s just go back,” Jake sighed. “We can catch Dr. Dan and ask him for help if we leave now.” We trundled back up the long road to the main street, pressing ourselves up against the stone walls to let cars and scooters squeeze by. Suddenly, a bright yellow taxi appeared behind us. “Taxsi?” we asked. We couldn’t believe our luck.

The driver nodded silently, pointing to his back seat. “Bairo Pite Clinic,” we chimed in unison. He held up three fingers, and we held up two in reply. He shook his head, waving his three fingers in the air at us. “We only have two dollars, sorry” Jake said. I waved my hand towards the road, brushing the driver off as unreasonable. At this, he relented, finallly putting down his ring finger and motioning for us to get in the car.

The drive back to the clinic took longer; we picked up a third passenger, an English-speaking Timorese fellow who said he worked on the beach. “You come visit, yeah? I am off today to have some fun, drink a little, but on Saturday?” We laughed in agreement, assuring him we would stop by some time that weekend. The taxi finally reached the clinic as the sun set, casting an orange-purple glow over the hazy mountains. We walked over to Dr. Dan’s office, only to find it empty. His beat-up Toyota Land Cruiser wasn’t there either. Crap. We walked over to the clinic office instead, hoping to find him there. Instead, we found Mana Yolanda, about to leave. “Uhh, do you have a phone?” I asked, miming a phone with my hand. “We need to call Dr. Dan.”

“Ehh, I thought you go home?” she asked, confused. “Yeah, uh, we got lost. Too confusing,” I replied sheepishlyadmitting defeat. “We are in Lurumata, but we had to come back because we had no idea where to go.”

Mana Yolanda laughed in disbelief, clearly amused by our noobishness. “Ahh, really? I know where it is! Is close to my house. But I have a bike, no car.” I facepalmed quietly to myself, pondering what it would be like to sleep on the clinic office floor. “I call a driver, okay?” Mana Yolanda said. My face lit up. “Really? OBRIGATU BARAK!” I exclaimed, unsure what that even meant. Was she going to tell a taxi driver where to go? Ask Dr. Dan to come back? Nope. The ambulance. We were going to be driven home in one of the freaking clinic ambulances.

Mana Yolanda sorted out our ride in less than a minute. We thanked her profusely, but she only laughed it off, assuring us it was nothing. “See you tomorrow!” we finally said as she walked to her scooter. She nodded, smiling to herself at our silly antics. We paced the parking lot, awaiting our ride. Suddenly, a short, clean-cut Timorese man appeared in front of us. “Are you from Australia?” he asked quietly.” “Uh, no, America,” I replied, extending my hand to shake his. “Are you a volunteer at the clinic?”

He shook his head. “No, I am here for my cousin. She is in the ward.”
“Oh, which one? TB? General ward?” I inquired, hoping to remember her symptoms. We had followed the medical students on afternoon rounds. “No, he said. She is in–she is–”

My heart sank. “She is thirteen?”

He nodded silently. His cousin was the young girl with leukemia. There was not a mite of cancer treatment on the whole island. The medical students told me that she probably had two weeks to live.

“I am so sorry.” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. I resorted to a trusty Chinese greeting: “Did she eat yet?”

“Yes, she did.” My heart rose a bit in my chest. “But she has blood–” he motioned to his mouth, curling his upper lip up–“her gum has blood.”

The ambulance pulled into the clinic’s dirt driveway. Jake and I exchanged a glance, and turned back to the young man. “I am sorry” I said again, unable to offer more than my condolences. “I will see you tomorrow.”

He nodded again, and began to walk towards the isolation ward where his cousin was staying. We had walked by it a few hours ago with Natto. I had literally seen the young girl rinsing out her mouth with water. I thought she had been brushing her teeth. Now, I realized she had been trying vainly to clear the blood out of her gums.

The ambulance driver and his friend were cheery and good-natured. We turned down the exact same shortcut Natto had shown us, but turned right instead of left after a large red fence. “Ohhhh,” Jake and I both exclaimed in unison. We finally knew where to go. Not left, RIGHT. Our host mom and dad greeted us at the metal gate. “Obrigatu barak!” we yelled back at the ambulance driver. Dinner was waiting for us–white rice, stir-fried bok choy with fried chicken (nan manu), with even a side of eggs and crinkle-cut french fries. And it was absolutely delicious. “Kapas los,” we told the senora. We had made it back alive.

this pc cafe costs $0.40/hour and has AoE2 + GTA: SA + CS1.6 installed on its desktop.

The flight from London to Singapore had some interesting movie choices. *cough Wellesley cough*

The best part is they have pepper from ‘MERICA! YEAHHHHHH, AMURIKAAA

that sign says “there is hole”, but is obscured by the bag of concrete.
the streets quickly go from beautiful, paved asphalt to dilapidated concrete once you leave the rich parts of Bali. I read an article in a local newspaper this morning calling out the government for being too “southern-friendly” with its focus on tourism. I assumed South = Australia. Basically, Bali is one of the richest provinces in Indonesia, but all the wealth is all concentrated in the areas around the airport. Tourists even admitted in surveys that they were reluctant to explore most of Bali, since it was too underdeveloped compared to the richer parts. Interesting to think about.

our first meal in Bali. we basically just asked our taxi driver to pick a nice place to go to, and invited him to eat with us. clams, prawns, lobster, red snapper, fish, fish, and more fish. it was the freshest seafood i’ve had since I was in taiwan in 2009, so it was all delicious. i still prefer satay though since there’s no bones/carapace when you’re dealing with chicken, lul.

I’m in Bali. We got in yesterday afternoon, met up with my friend’s friend’s friend Hamid, got a taxi, and found a $40/night hotel with A/C, hot water, and western toilets, right next to Kuta beach. Baller. I’ll write a post later tonight about Hamid and our taxi driver Iwayan. They both have interesting stories indeed.

If you have an aversion to parentheses, stop reading right now.

Right now, I’m sitting in the hallway outside Gate 5 of Terminal 3 of Heathrow, leeching wireless from Singapore Airlines’ VIP lounge. This is the first time I’ve ever been to Europe. It’s not very glamorous yet -____- (also,  hi America–the Heat won last night? -_______-)

I must say, I’m rather impressed with Virgin Atlantic. Strange figure-eight style gamepad thingiemajig to control the EXTREMELY advanced in-flight entertainment system. Seriously, this thing was absolutely amazing. You can play Bejeweled, watch dozens of movies and tv shows, message other passengers using an intra-plane IM system, or just stare at a real-time map of the flight path. I ended up watching Chronicle (well, this movie got real dark real fast), Tower Heist (yay diversity and Ben Stiller being Good Guy General Manager), and most of In Time (loljustintimberlake).

It’s like holding an extra-narrow Chinese knockoff of an SNES gamepad! Only with more colors and LEDs and OKAY IT’S NOT LIKE AN SNES GAMEPAD AT ALL, WHAT IS THIS THING!? And  I have to say, the response time on SNES controllers > this V-Port system…

I sat in an exit row with infinite legroom, just an aisle across from this adorable little girl.

Bow to me, mortals! My throne towers above your peasantry! Jk I’m adorable and the best-behaved baby ever.

Her name is Lydia. Her parents said that this was her *SEVENTEENTH* flight total, spread out over eight different trips (the dad wore Toms and had shiny blue Ray Bans, while the mother sported a swanky looking Victoria Beckham-ish bob. I guess they were quite well off). Lydia, for her part, quite enjoyed the flight, never crying *once* during the seven hour journey. Instead, she was quite content to munch of Cheerios and slurp up tasty-looking applesauce for the first hour or so (I was pretty jelly, not gonna lie), then to sleep soundly in her super baller bassinet for the remainder of the flight.

Seriously, look at the thing. It’s basically a THRONE. The flight attendants (who all had awesome accents (“oh my goodness, I was so dee-hi-DRAY-tid,” one of them said, in bemusing contrast to our American “dee-HI-dray-tid”) whipped the thing out from a compartment, clicked the solid metal frame together, and mounted it on hooks on the wall. I ain’t never seen this before on jetBlue or United, no sir.

She’s a cozy, slumbering burrito! Teehee.

P.S. You can’t tell from either of these pictures, since she’s wearing blinders in this picture and blinking in the other, but she had big, blue-as-Luke Hill’s eyes.

Meanwhile, in the seat next to mine, sat Rachel, a twenty year old university student from Manchester. She seemed a bit for the first hour of the flight, asking the flight attendants for painkillers and not speaking much (“this is lit’rily my second time evah floiying”). She was passed out most of the flight while I watched movie after movie, but once we began our descent, she started talking about her time in Boston.

She had actually been working at a summer camp for disabled persons in Bedford (“lolwut I’m from Lexington” I said), but had to withdraw from the job due to health reasons. Unfortunately, she got an ear infection as soon as she arrived in the U.S., and not being from the U.K. where the NHS covers everything, she lacked insurance. The camp directors took her to a clinic in Bedford, where she was aghast to find out she needed to pay $90 for antibiotics, plus $40 in other fees. “Back home, oi would’ve paid loike seven pounds for the same drugs,” she sighed. The flight attendant seated across from us nodded in agreement.

“But moui goodness, the clinic was amayyy-zing!” Rachel suddenly exclaimed. “In the U.K., I would have gone in, waited five hours in agonizing pain, then finally seen a doctor while paying next to nothing. Here, I literally just walked in, paid some money, and bam! “Right this way please!”” And the clinic was twice the size of the hospitals back home too! If hospitals in Manchester were like that, we’d be all set!”

We continued to chat as our airplane landed, taxied, and opened up for disembarking (“come on Lydia, we’re here! Welcome to London!” *Lydia coos happily*). As a Health, Science, Society, & Policy major, I was all too happy to explain the pros and cons of Obamacare and the differences between the U.S.’s employer-based private system and the National Health Service. Lydia went off to vacation with her parents in London, and Rachel wished me well as she left to enjoy her *FOUR MONTH* summer holiday in Manchester.

And me–after a tremendously hectic 24 hours of good-byes, feverish packing, and oh-my-goodness-these-next-7-weeks-are-going-to-be-the-the-longest-I’ve-ever-been-away-from-home–I was none-too-subtly reminded through my meeting Rachel of why I’m flying halfway around the world: health!

L’chaim!